Archive for the ‘My WIP’s’ Category

I’ve been working on some canvases for a project, these are all spoken for and it’s a bit of a secret so I can’t show the completed photos just yet. I can show some teaser photos though!! I plan on making more of these after I’ve completed these.

I have also updated the tabs on this here blog. I combined the Etsy and Ebay stores into the Links tab. I also added The Whimsy Attic tab that will eventually link to my website…once I get it created.

I don’t normally create Christmas items, but this year I decided to do A Christmas Carol display at work. I’m making 1/12 size art dolls of Scrooge, Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future. I haven’t quite figured out the display yet but I’m using the same table and Victorian Canvas’s that I had up for Halloween. Everything will be Scrooge’y and not overly Christmas’y.

I decided to create another Pumpkin Diorama this year for the United Way auction at work. I created one last year that can be found here.
This year I’m using the same size pumpkin but it is white instead. I had seen a white pumpkin online that had been antiqued with glaze and I liked the look. The concept was going to be a haunted house but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do an inside scene of a haunted house or make the pumpkin the house instead. I chose to do both.

The house itself I was going to make out of wood but I really didn’t want to. It was going to be a lot of small cuts, etc. I decided to use fun foam instead. The house form is 1/4 foam, then the smaller stuff is the thin foam. Much more easy to cut!

Here are the pictures up until now. I’m at the stage now where I am using expanding foam inside the pumpkin to build up the area the house will sit on. I will paint the brick chimney while I wait for the foam to dry.

She is almost finished. I have her strung up and will add a bit more large mesh Cheese cloth to her once she dries over night. I cut her off the dress form and then repaired the area. Will take pics once she is in her display at work.

Still on Dress form, adding large mesh cheese cloth and some free flowing fabric on the base.

I started working on the canvas backdrops for my Halloween display at work. I think I mentioned before that I’m doing a Haunted Victorian scene. I have 8 large, 4′ x 3′ canvas’s that I had bought at auction numerous years ago with the intention of re-purposing them. They are the ‘Made in China’ ones that you can get at retail stores that have different scenes painted on them. I got all 8 for $47, with the auction fee. I think they run around $30-$40 each normally, so I scored!
I am using two of them long ways, since the ‘table’ that will be in the display is 8ft long. I have bought black and white Victorian Damask fabric that I’m using as the wallpaper. I used Instant Coffee in warm/hot water to uniformly stain the fabric, then threw it in the dryer. In the picture below the fabric on the right is the original and on the left is a test for the distressing I wanted to do.

I then laid it out on the canvas to figure out where I wanted the seams of the wallpaper to be, which I didn’t want to be centered on the canvas.

Once I had it where I wanted it, I marked on the fabric so that I could line it back up. There are three strips of fabric in the above picture, I removed one at a time, put down Paverpol on the canvas and wet and wringed the fabric before laying back in place. The Paverpol takes about 24 hours to dry so I had time to adjust the fabric and make it look like ‘failing’ wallpaper. The reason I wet the fabric is two fold. One it is easier to work with and secondly, I wanted to use Alcohol inks and more Instant Coffee to distress it, they both take better to wet fabric.

After the fabric was laid back on the Canvas, I puckered the fabric in places and made the seams more visible, like old wallpaper would fail. I lifted some of the edges and placed balled up plastic wrap underneath for support. Below is a picture when it is still wet.

I spritzed it with alcohol ink in places then dabbed it so that it didn’t have a spritzed look. Then I added dry Install Coffee chunks in places and dripped water over the top to make the dark spots.

The fabric is dry this morning but I am adding a few more distresses to it. I will post more WIPs or when it is finished.

I started on the Chalkboard this weekend, that has been sitting for months. Awesome right? Well last week, while paroozing through Pinterest, I saw some craft rooms that I liked and it reminded me that I wanted to take the desk out of the craft room and put in a wall mounted work surface to make space.

My brain has been moving around the idea and I finally got the brilliant idea to take a kitchen table, cut it in half, and mount it to the wall. The two legs will support the front and then a 2 x 2, or whatever, will support it on the wall.
Awesome!! Now where do I find a kitchen table for cheap. When I say cheap, I’m talking under $50 bucks and the less the better.
I started watching Craigslist and found awesome decorative tables in the $100+ range. Noway can I afford that. Today I check Craigslist before tackling the Chalkboard painting and Walla! Kitchen table, all wood, that was exactly what I was looking for. The best part? It was the type that has the built in leaf to extend the table. Which means it’s already cut down the middle!!! Wooo Hoooo!! Don’t have to cut it and try to get it straight, or take it to Da and Fama’s to do on the Table Saw. How much was it? $40 buckaroo’s and it came with two chairs. One chair is trash but the other is in good shape.

Here is what it looks like before it has been mounted in the craft room, which will have to wait until next weekend.

I love chalkboards, not the green ones, but the old school black ones. I’ve seen many chalkboards popping up that are old frames, etc., that have been turned into chalkboards, so I decided to give it a try. My mom had a few large old frames that she had oil paintings in and I asked her to save them. I saw a Tut online for doing a magnetic chalkboard and thought it would make a great way to display the magnets I create. Magnetic chalkboard it is!

I didn’t want to use magnetic paint but instead wanted metal as a backer, mainly because it gives a stronger magnetic surface for magnets to stick to.

I’ve been beating my head on the Skullery table trying to think of something I can create. This will be my first official art doll, although others have been started and set aside, this one is screaming at me as to what it wants to be and look like.
I have made many full sized Halloween props so to say this is my first of something new… just feels odd.
I have to say that it feels good to be creating again. I have to force myself to stop playing in the Skullery at night and go decompress from the day before I go to bed.

Here are a few picks of the Reapling in progress. Yes you will see that the Poly Clay is over cooked, mainly due to the numerous times he has been in the oven for different parts/pieces to cure. I’m still a newbie at Poly Clay and have many little techniques to learn.

*Update*

The Reapling is getting closer to being finished. I need to finish up on his cloak w/hood and possibly add a few details and wala.